Some facts about homelessness in America

[dead0man]

Not shocked, still very saddened. What's worse is that nothing is being done about homelessness but somehow giving more money to the rich is a priority

That's obviously not true and offensive to the thousands of people working hard to make the numbers better.  Why do you hate social workers?

Fact 1-homelessness has declined 6.8% since 2007

Fact 2-Chronic homelessness has declined by 19.3 percent since 2007

Fact 3-Homelessness among veterans has declined by 7.2 percent since 2011 and by 17.2 percent since 2009

cite=HUD

and HUD's budget (by itself, not counting what the VA or the Dep of Health is doing) is $47B.  Maybe it should be more, but it's a lot more than nothing.  I'm not saying we're perfect.  I'm not saying we shouldn't strive to do more or that it's not an important issue, but come on.  We don't have a national crisis on our hands.

[dead0man]

I was totally with you until the last sentence. The country has a bad problem. We're making progress, even though things are still far from perfect. You even get a gold star for precise stats and having a link. I wish more posters were as diligent. And then you said it wasn't a crisis...It's hard to think of a bigger crisis than that many people without a home.

0.5% of the population...most of which go in and out of homelessness, many of which chose the lifestyle and for others it's better than the alternative.  For it to be a crisis it would need to be more than 0.5% of the population.

On the other hand, we have 5 times more empty houses than we do homeless people.  It would be nice if we could put the two together easily, but ya know, laws.  Perhaps the govt could buy some empty houses from the banks that own them (ideally at a low low price) and put some homeless in them....but aren't they already doing that?  Maybe not to the extent we'd like nor in that exact way.

but my point is, it's not a crisis.  Sure, for many of the people involved it is, but not for America at large.

[dead0man]

You mean like this?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

or this

You must be logged in to read this quote.

and they have sued at least one state, Nevada for doing just that.  cite

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[dead0man]

Perhaps we just define crisis differently. As for SF, their weather ensures a higher homeless population than most of the country. There's a reason homeless people would rather live there than Minneapolis.

Agreed on all counts....still seems that's awfully low bar for the term crisis though.  Would 300k still be a crisis?  100k?  10k?  I doubt we could get it that far down even if we did every reasonable thing we could think of to lower the number.  Some people just don't want to live with an address.

[dead0man]

Do you have numbers on how much of homelessness is voluntary like you keep asserting?

Nope, but it's certainly greater than 0.  Good luck if you decide to search, my Google Fu is quite strong and I got nothing.  It seems it's a question the people that care a lot about the homeless don't want to ask.

But you'll note from this article that there are many, especially on the west coast, that are homeless because they think it's "cool".  (there was a good King of the Hill episode on the subject)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'll agree it's likely a smallish percentage of the overall homeless, say between 10 and 30%.  Higher in some places, much lower in others.

Do you have numbers on how much of homelessness is voluntary like you keep asserting?

The poor have it good in America, you see. Too good.

straw0man smells that smell again

[dead0man]

I've never said we should do less than we do, in fact I've said we should do more.  I'm not against the homeless, the majority of which are there through no fault of their own.  I have an especially soft spot for vets and families (as a vet and family haver).  I just don't think it's a national crisis and that it's a hard nut to crack.